István Szepsy

„I’ve been saying for 20 years that we’d stop adding new areas. However, we just can’t stop ourselves! Now it’s the andesite soil of Tállya and its five first-class vineyards that excite me. Once it accounted for most of the grapes in the wine region. My wife’s hairdresser has even asked me why I go there so often. We discover 800-year-old vineyard names and each parcel hides a surprise. The 2011 wines seem suspiciously good: that’s when it’s the most nerve wrecking for the winemaker. Again it showed that there is no recipe in winemaking; the practice of walking the vineyards and experimenting cannot be replaced by anything. Every day we try to make our wines believing that the wine region will once again be at the place where it should be.”

Winemaking and wine style: „We harvest in several small batches into crates. We select and crush the bunches because of the dissolving of the cells under the skin. We use the pure must and the press juice together because for me the press juice is the richest part. After a day of settling we ferment spontaneously in wooden barrels. Then the wine rests for three months on its fine lees.” The fruity estate wine is blended from the younger, from bunches of not quite so small berries and made with identical care as compared to the big wines. Then there’s the mineral, rich, complex single-vineyard wines.